CARACAS, Venezuela - Thou shalt not steal, say the Ten Commandments, but it might eventually no longer apply if you are starving in Venezuela.
The poor, oil-rich nation is considering decriminalizing the theft of food and medicine in cases where a thief is motivated by extreme hunger or need. Supreme Court Judge Alejandro Angulo Fontiveros told Reuters on Wednesday that the so-called "famine theft" clause should be part of a broad penal code reform measure for humanitarian reasons. "This is a guide for judges to avoid injustice," said Fontiveros, who is in charge of drafting the reforms. "They lock up for years a poor person who lives in atrocious misery and what they need is medicine."
Under Fontiveros' proposal to the Supreme Court, those who take food, medicine or inexpensive goods without using violence to ease hunger caused by prolonged, extreme poverty would not be punished. To eventually become law, the proposal must pass through the Supreme Court and be approved by a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. Critics say the initiative will fuel crime in a country mired in a recession and where police last year reported an average of 25 murders a day and thousands of robberies a month.
Supporters dismiss fears it will become a license to rob, saying the proposed law would apply only to nonviolent crimes. Two thirds of Venezuela's 25 million people are poor and a third of those cannot afford their basic food needs despite the nation's huge oil wealth, according to government figures. Private analysts dismiss state figures as too conservative.
The penal reform effort has sparked more controversy by also including possible decriminalization of abortion and allowing voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill.
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